From the Grave
by rednightmare
Summary: A donnish Sarano cousin meets a would-be grave-robber. Vindictiveness and plenty of cussin' ensue in this eccentric Dark Elf romance played to the morbid tune of traditional Dunmer burial rites.
1. Sweeping the Mortuary

_**Author's Note**_**: Hi, my name is rednightmare, and I primarily write fiction for neglected and low-traffic genres. **

**Ahem.**

**Well – on to **_**Morrowind**_**, then, shall we? I really have no idea where this little project is going. It was written quite some time ago, and a recent tidying-up of My Documents inspired me to quickly reformat and smack it up here. It's mostly for laughs and to salve my **_**Elder Scrolls III**_** nostalgia by toying around with old characters, but I'll let you know more as soon as I do.**

**Thank you for reading!**

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**FROM THE GRAVE**

Dance in the wind, poor skeleton!  
You that was my deary one,  
You they hanged for stealing sheep.  
Dance and dangle, laugh and leap!  
Tomorrow night at Squire's ball,  
I am to serve a sheep in hall:  
My Lady's wedding, Lord love her!  
_Wait until they lift the cover!  
_- "The Skeleton at the Feast" by E.H. Visiak

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**Sweeping the Mortuary**

There was dirt rammed an inch under the girl's hoary, broken claws.

A less-scrutinizing spelunker likely would've taken her for dead. She certainly _looked_ dead – sprawled out stomach-down at the foot of a ceremonial altar; with long, limp arms tossed high over a lolling head and legs flung spread-eagle; milk-grey cheeks pressed face-first into a heap of cremated remains. Ragged scarlet tangles gnarled around singed flecks of bone. Heavy lashes were crusted with brownish powder. Her mouth – off-pink, drooling, and slightly crooked – had contorted against the cement until it formed an ugly, unconscious cringe. Dunmer teeth winked through dull lighting. Blood dried along the shallow gulley bridging wide lips with a small nose. _Bosmer nose_. The lady smacked it fair hard into a stone ridge of this particular ash pit when she fell, it seemed; dots of crimson spotted her already unclean attire. A hodgepodge mix of armor – boiled netch leather torso, fingerless gloves and rather disproportionately large chitin boots – settled uselessly upon dark-complexioned flesh, twisting the stained sack shirt beneath. Diluted red eyes, their lineage pasty and impure, glued themselves shut in bodily wax. Human dust plastered one side of her brow. And to top all: the misbegotten mongrel of a thing apparently crashed forward in such a way that her rough tan battle skirt had been hiked unceremoniously over unflattering under-trews.

Azulthan Sarano might have been a tad more sympathetic had she not currently been salivating all over dear Aunt Ruvmi's ashes.

With nothing else to do, he grabbed a hold of one weak, dead-weight ankle and dragged the woman's mug out of his relatives' bothered cinders, depositing her at their base. That whelp's disheveled pumpkin of skull carved a deep line through the clay like a kwama forager slurping across sand embankments. The sheer sacrilege of it all made him shudder. And, though it was difficult to decipher by waning torch-light… the Hlaalu agent swore he saw a single molar tumble out of her tattered mop and clink against adobe floors.

Gold flashed briefly against the ground. Definitely a tooth; while pricey charms and gemstones served as commonplace tributes, there were no idle drakes to be found rattling their family tomb. The object now sitting a few inches from Azulthan's polished black riding boot was indubitably a false cuspid. Oh, _gods_ – Great-Grandpa Fedas. He raked distressed fingers through an oily, jaw-length mane of sable hair and tried to swallow the bitter taste rising up his tongue. No use – it scaled those fleshy bumps of taste-buds like a professional rock climber. The young man had to satisfy himself with a horrified scowl. His severe mouth set itself into an even grimmer line. Lofty noble cheekbones with the knife-sharp ridge of _enforcer_ cast shadows beneath vermeil sclerae, their planes perpendicular to a thick, dramatic eyebrow line. His pointed chin, once broken, rested three centimeters left-of-center to the elf's retracting upper lip. A white grimace – a pretty grimace set in a somber jaw, apt to take a thresher bite out of your throat – glistened within. Dahlia eyes wrinkled, enhancing their naturally-born, mongoose squint. Insult chased the expression of dismay across his snakelike face. Embers everywhere... poofed across a far wall, stuck to the pores in that fainted wretch's forehead, swirled in shapes across old tiles. _B'vek_, this was awful. The Sarano clasped both wiry arms around his frame and rubbed them disdainfully up-and-down, rumpling his clean-pressed fencing shirt sleeves, damp crypt atmosphere sinking through a royal green vest and dipping across rib bones. Pin-pricks of blasphemy needled along stringy calf muscles that the high necks of his shoes only made worse. Yes. This was assuredly the most awful thing he had ever been made witness to.

Erm. Well. To be perfectly honest, perhaps its level of horridness did not exceed the boy's last debt collection - in which he'd chopped off three digits of a House loan defaulter and gagged that jibbering Imperial dog with his own fleshy thumb. But it was pretty damn close, to say the least.

How did one even go about respectfully cleaning this mess up? Could there possibly _be _any further way to desecrate his ancestors' graves, now that marrow matter and hair follicles wrote calligraphy all over the ground? Azulthan gnawed on a thin bottom lip, puffed one bullet-breath of air through his razor nose, and paced three steps east-to-west before realizing he might track more ash. The elf was not sure which was a sorer suggestion, at this rate: risking the separation of a few microbes belonging to departed predecessors, or returning them by shearing off this fetcher's tissue-laden, fiery locks and thusly polluting their basin with foreign taint. Simply pondering either scenario made the Dunmer feel woozy. Stormcloud skin went clammy; muscles clenched viciously behind his jowls, souring the lad's palate. There was a visible, circle-shaped splotch of darkness where her spit had soaked in. _Mm-hmm_. Oh, indeed. He was most certainly dizzy now. The typically spry envoy-on-assignment had blanched from crown to toe-tip, as a matter of fact; this scene was just so gods-damned terrible that it made him physically weak. Perhaps that's why the intruder had seemingly keeled over and passed-out directly atop a pile of long-dead Saranos. Even some obvious half-blooded s'wit like this... this miserable, obtuse, stick-legged _doxy_... couldn't stomach such supreme defilement, was it?

Azura's blood, he ought to cut up her stupid-looking face into measly little bits and feed them to a passing slaughterfish... lay a butcher knife into that perky snout and split a canyon between the droll, inappropriately-colored eyes.

All that would have to come later, though. As it was, Azulthan hadn't yet an opportunity to punish the evident grave-robber, whose failed heist had plummeted noggin-first into an offering pyre. He was a touch more concerned with returning his grandfather's bona fide dental records to their final resting place... as chilling a prospect as that was. _'Oblivion take me, why must these blasted halls always be so claustrophobic?'_ the dogged elf cursed to himself, glancing around this curved corridor they currently stood within. Well. _He_ stood. _She_ lay in a useless, damp-mouthed heap, armpits tossed shamelessly to the heavy subterranean air and ungainly body twisted into a leaden pretzel. Underground oxygen smelled wet, compost-laced – like mold. Behind them, a wood door with a menacing iron lock cast its long shadows across candlelight. Azulthan had lit these wicks only minutes ago, and already were heaps of wax clumping upon plinths, torch racks dribbling pitch. The inky droplets landed between rows of ossuaries, each as tall as an adolescent.

He suddenly felt very uneasy.

Hefting his family's rescued helm under one arm – he'd been chagrined when hearing that dear sister had nearly commissioned Balmora's Fighters Guild as opposed to notifying him – the kinsman buckled down. He compassionlessly rolled the still-slobbering girl out of his way, dead weight flopping over like a beached fish left hours in summer sunlight. _'Fatherless cur.'_ Then, stooping, Azulthan did his best work of sweeping any upset ashes into the great ebony dustbin and carrying them repentantly home. He dumped the contents out amongst their cordoned-off trench with a cheek-biting, awkward apology. This action was utterly agonizing; profaneness most foul. _'Yes, without question – there will most certainly be ghosts roaring out of their graves the next harvest moon.'_ Thank the gods he'd foresight enough to wear gloves today. Otherwise the scandalized (and custom-squeamish) Dark Elf would've been scraping carbon from his fingernails with a silver butter-knife. It was an image that made his spine tingle, a chill like late Hearthfire leaping up every vertebra. He watched while pockets of ash – fine as sand grains – sifted over the helmet's golden lip and down into a heavy, sullen lump.

Dreadful. Appalling. And _damned_ creepy, to boot.

Once he'd flicked Fedas Sarano's missing canine safely into the community ditch, Azulthan's right hand rubbed at his neckline by reflex, leaving one cloudy handprint across a neatly-folded collar. He noticed it a moment too late and dusted the garment with disgusted rigor. _Perfect_. Just perfect. Now – after all this nonsensical debasement of their mausoleum had already transpired – the steadfast cousin had smeared himself with dead chemical compound. Today kept getting better and better.

Now the real question: whatever to do about _her_?

Azulthan could imagine what had taken place inside this dreary catacomb easily enough. She – a wayward, mule-born thief (and an undoubted outlander, at that) – had broken into their vault in an attempt to steal the coveted Sarano Family Helm. Apparently the would-be bandit's info had been a bit faulty, however. He'd entered their tomb to find the armor piece hurled halfway across its vestibule, a shattered lantern, some knocked-cold burglaress and a once-stabbed hunger locked downstairs. It had been simple to dispatch – already stabled through the sinewy gut. He guessed she had wandered down here in poor light, met face-to-face with the beast, impaled it, then flew upstairs screaming until catching her boot's toe on a plaster crack and careening forward into unsympathetic concrete. Somewhere along the way a flailing arm disrupted the blue glass lamp and exploded it. Little sapphire fragments had embedded themselves in the tarrish hide of her cuirass. Pricey soul gems and rings emblazoned with heritage crests lay scattered about in haphazard, glittering arcs. If he cared enough to part her bushy autumn layers of hair, the purebred Dunmer did not doubt he'd find a spongy, swollen bump where she'd whacked cement. _'Insolent hag'_ with a babyish, insipid face. Tall and ashen like a proper Dark Elf; bony and wide-eyed like their lesser Valenwood counterparts, color scheme diluted. She looked one quarter Bosmer, perhaps –_ 'a tragic deterioration of the bloodline.' _Even had this mutt girl not been caught with her hand shoved down the proverbial cookie jar (or an urn, in this case), Azulthan knew through intuition and his own racial superiority that he'd have loathed her instantly.

The Sarano supposed he could've slit her throat and left a bleeding body there, true enough. It didn't seem kosher, however. Besides, it was not as if his antecedents needed any more reason to rile themselves. So – not knowing what other options were available – he maneuvered an arm under her knees and hefted the grossly unsuccessful ruffian. She was heavier than the agent guessed. Dumb, oversized boot soles panged against his side. Her still soot-smudged head lolled back. She smelled vaguely like stale baking and dry earth.

Azulthan carried her out of the burial chamber, sealed it, and dumped the vagabond into a green slump of Second Seed grass. The girl splayed out lifelessly, undisturbed. Blue sky arced from the north, over Suran's limestone back, providing an awfully pretty backdrop for having discovered something so ghastly only several steps and a locked door away. Nippy springtime breeze cooled the sun-warm air. Heather mingled a lagging sleepiness into its curves, pink-tipped leaves clashing with stoneflowers and unattractive, rooty corkbulb spouts. Somewhere overhead, there was a songbird chirping its ambivalence away.

He studied her, cocked his head, and nudged a hard leather toe rather sharply into the woman's ribcage. When that didn't work, the asp-eyed Sarano dealt a kick to her solar plexus hard enough to tumble the flea-bag twice over.

She woke up – spitting, snorting, clutching her stomach – stupid cerise eyes blinking wildly.

It took two minutes of vapid staring before the ragamuffin seemed to realize where she was. Or _where she had just been_, more accurately… because the elf skittered suddenly, chin whipping towards the shut polyandrium nestled in a hillside. She blew a fork of coral out of her view path and gaped. Only when the completion of this tidy little rescue had been fully ascertained did the doltish trollop take a whale's breath and turn her addled attentions to whomever had found time enough to drag some clumsy grave-robber from that deadly undercroft.

He was staring at her – patient, underexpressive – with both gloved hands folded just behind an erect noble's back.

"Are you all _right_?" the Dark Elf asked, neatly-groomed eyebrows furrowing in faux concern. His crisp voice was well-schooled and tingled with a mocking aftertaste, clothing expensive and posture commendable. Poppy-red eyes were narrow and highly criticizing. All in all, he certainly looked cavalier enough for a legitimate well-to-do operative – stately from his greasy mane of limp raven hair to those glistening horseman's boots. The evident upper-crustedness of him put her at ease. So, gripping at the rope necklace looped around a scrawny neck, the woman dropped her urge to panic and nodded gradually. Glossy pupils flickered to and fro with a stalled, distracted sense of relief. Sloppily-cut carrot bangs itched around her brow.

"Yeah…" she puffed, admission an offhand pant from the depths of her ash-dry throat. The girl's voice was rather nasal, medium-pitch, and flaked in the middle-country wind. "Yeah, I think I'm okay."

Then she stood up, and Azulthan Sarano slugged her right in the nose.


	2. The Hangman's Walk

**The Hangman's Walk**

Ismere woke up, blinking, sprawled flat against a damp patch of ground.

Again.

She was somewhat troubled to find both her hands were tied together from wrist to elbow.

Granted, the girl had fully expected to wake up _dead_ – first from that spindly Hunger in the Sarano tomb and then on her soured rescuer's blade. Jerking to consciousness with dew-wet clothes and rope-burnt forearms was certainly preferable to banging her skull on a coffin lid. This disoriented elf almost remembered where she was, actually… which meant the punch to her face, while painful, hadn't damaged quite so many brain cells as a night's binge on Lirielle Stoine's fine Ald-ruhn sujamma. If her guildmates were to be believed – and they _were_ career criminals, mind you, so this was in no way a rhetorical "if" – the last time Allding announced a community drinking contest, Ismere had ended up passed out in a kwama egg crate with a brass cooking pot slumped over her head.

Thinking of booze reminded the girl how dry her throat currently was, however, and she let out an ungraceful belly cough. Sore stomach muscles clenched enough to clear the fog from her vision. Nonspecific green farmland stretched out in all directions. The knolls and flats of south Vvardenfell were a far better bedroom than musty burial chambers, true, but there was a sense of unnerving solitude about so much uncultivated space that failed to console her. Heather clogged stinging sinuses. It was growing late – evening sinking from red to purple – and the leaves of several tall trees rustled dispassionately overhead. The grass beneath her felt cold. The air was clear and smelled like a lagoon bank. It could have been much worse a locale, all things considered, but the notion of being bound outdoors after dark put very few sane mer at ease. This particular bandit was especially displeased by such an idea. Everything seemed quiet now, yes… but what was to stop a passing pack of nix hounds from upending the woman and gobbling her down, strung like a market turkey? Ismere paled. There was a sudden titter behind her head; it sounded like a scrib. Wind rumpled through wickwheat. A horsefly landed on her nose tip. She snorted to dislodge it and tugged at the blasted arm restraints to no avail. Shivering, orange tendrils stuck to her brow, the Dunmer kicked frantically and nearly dislocated hip. It was marginally comforting to discover that her feet were not latched together.

Ah, what luck! In that case, she'd simply to roll herself up and walk somewhere with rope-cutting knives.

Snuffling, Ismere lifted her upper body off the ground, looked past her chitin boot toes, and saw this little predicament's first real problem.

"Hey," she called out to the well-dressed Dark Elf, who sat perched on a rock with _The Ruins of Kemel-Ze _propped open over his knees. Her voice sounded nasal and pointedly Bosmer in the low dusk breeze. "Hey, you! What is this? Cut me loose!" (It wasn't very commanding or outraged for a tied-up young lady in the wilderness, perhaps, but she couldn't think of anything else to say.)

He ignored her. Ismere watched with a sort of dumb disbelief as the man kept reading, flipped a page, and proceeded to finish up his chapter. Thin scarlet eyes ran over the lines of text quickly, absent a single flicker of regard for her.

She sat up, mane disheveled, and stared at him.

"Hey," she said again, waiting until the stranger's gloved hand moved towards a corner of his tome. "Come on. I can't just stay like this. My back itches," the girl complained, shrugging a gamey shoulder as proof. Sweat had glued light armor plates to its under-padding. Her pale grey hands flexed in the fat length of rope, making its stiff coils squeak, short fingers still packed with dirt. "And, well. You know. Logically, I mean… it doesn't make much sense to save me from that daedra just to bind me up like so. Because that was you, wasn't? B'vek, it must have been. Which means you've got to let me go sooner or later. Because…" She swallowed a mouthful of cold saliva. "There's nothing else to do, right?"

_Nothing_. He shifted the book imperceptibly, cleared his throat, and carried on. Limp black hair framed the fine face at cruel, unwashed angles. He looked much less heroic from her new position on the ground. Actually, the fellow looked rather like a vest-wearing, high-town snake with a rapier on his hip and a general distaste for interruptions.

Ismere had no inkling, as of yet, _why_ she had apparently been hauled out of harm's way only to be captured. This vindictive turn of events disturbed her more than a little. The young elf thought about springing up and running for it. How far could she possibly get without the added momentum of swinging arms? Would he even be bothered with chasing after her? She'd learned about _poisoned darts_ the hard way, however – as a pickpocket in Vivec many years ago, who targeted the wrong Argonian marksman – and shelved this dangerous idea for now. With not much else to occupy her, the girl drew her legs up until both soles were planted face-down, heels perpendicular to her bum.

Her apathetic captor still didn't grace his prisoner with the dignity of a glance.

"See, it's…" She chewed on a chapped bottom lip, only then realizing how badly her nose stung. Every slight tightening of facial muscles pulled at Ismere's nostrils and made them scream. Dried blood cracked inside them. The girl – who'd always thought herself to be quite pretty (in a roguish, backwoods way) – would probably cry if her bridge had been permanently crookened. _'Oh, well. Vanity later_,_'_ she decided, and snuffed a mucusy clot down. "It's confusing, is what it is. I figure you didn't kill me – and from the looks of things, I still got all my clothes on – so I can't puzzle out why you'd trouble yourself with all this. You know. The ropes and all."

These flailing attempts at persuasion weren't getting the thief very far, so she fidgeted, reconsidered her strategy, and asked the only thing Ismere could think to ask in such a strange situation.

"What are you reading?" she wondered politely, craning her small, blunt chin atop a skinny neck.

_Success_: the Dunmer sighed.

Visibly regretting not having gagged this wayward bandit, said Dunmer snapped his book shut, stood up, and strode over to her with no particular rush.

Then he planted a shiny black riding boot directly in the middle of her chest, flattening Ismere down, and proceeded to interrogate her.

"Who told you about the helm?" was all the Dark Elf had to say, narrow eyes squinting hard at her, crimson slits threatening to disappear into his lean face. He enunciated very well, but his voice was run ragged by the island's ash. Ah, a _native_ – of course. It figured. Really, it did. Only she'd be lucky enough to visit an ancestral mausoleum while its family members were paying a visit. Either that, or this serpentine character was a very well-to-do guardsman… but both scenarios rather left Ismere in the lurch. The girl looked down at the foot atop her torso and blinked wildly at it.

"Uh, listen. Honestly. You must have me confused with somebody else. I've got no idea what you're tal-_grk_!" His boot moved from her sternum to her neck, stepping down upon the woman's windpipe. Its toe nudged uncomfortably into the fleshy underside of her throat. Cured leather pressed a print into the would-be robber's jaw. She smelled polish and mud.

Things were suddenly looking dismal.

Ismere Sherryhark was a thief, yes, but she was not a particularly _good_ thief. Don't mistake the poor girl – devotion to one's Guild was all well and good. It was a mite difficult to recall loyalty pledges with an instep threatening her vocal chords, though… and, _Honor Among Thieves_ be damned, she had no intention of dying over some ugly armor piece with those compassionless vermillion eyes sneering overhead.

"All right, all right!" the outlander squawked. He gave her only an inch of leeway to speak; Ismere's fingers, still roped together, were frustrated that they couldn't shove him off. "I'm Thieves Guild," she confessed, puffing it out, "and filching the helmet was a job." It was surprisingly easy to raise the flag on her own mates, Ismere realized, as every incriminating word removed that shoe another few centimeters. She kept rattling on. Her breaths were coming in fast gulps and leaving in high-pitched squeals. "Nobody said a damn thing about a Hunger, though. Yeah, they worked me over solid – _huh_! I was getting paid good money for it, too. So it was nothing personal, see? They were gonna' give me two-thousand drakes just for delivering the thing. Just turning it over! After the tasks I've been about doing, you wouldn't believe… Couldn't pass that up! Who could, right? Right?"

Her vanquisher did not look impressed. "Tell me exactly who gave this order," he began, sounding in no way sympathetic, "and I'll release you. Otherwise I'll split you open like a fish. Do you understand? If you so much as try lying to me, I'll-"

"It was Sugar-Lips Habasi. In Balmora!" Ismere blanched the moment her mouth snapped shut. She cried it out before he'd finished his threat.

Satisfied, he hopped off her neck and clipped back to the boulder that had hosted him, picking up another neatly-rolled bolt of twine. The weak, grimacing grin Ismere had been shooting him at the mention of 'release' faded quickly, hope dropping into dismay.

"So I'm guessing you must be a Sarano," she murmured, wincing, biting her lip as though they'd just happened upon an unseemly dinner topic. His response was attaching a short chain of string to both her ankles and hoisting the gangly young woman up by a fistful of hair.

She stumbled immediately; there was no running to be had at this point, with only a foot of length separating each leg. It was surprisingly difficult to adjust. Lunging up so swiftly made a large thwack of blood rush to Ismere's head, dizzy cobwebs encroaching on her vision, and she barely avoided crashing face-first back into a nice square of country grass. Still – woozy and panicking – the elf spotted his sword catch a muted edge of sunlight and thought about swiping it. Unfortunately, her arms were currently trapped in an impotent 'l.' And she wouldn't have known how to make heads-or-tails of a noble's rapier, even on the best of days. Ismere forced herself to picture the sorry scene in question, just to dissuade any dwindling hopes of grabbing for that weapon. Oh, no. Definitely not. There was no conceivably way a duel between them might end well.

She stood there, painfully awkward, as the Dunmer kneeled before her and fixed a loop around Ismere's waist.

"What is that? What are you doing?" the flimsy thief asked – full-out cringing, now – arms flexed from nails to scapulae. Birds were chirping selfishly away overhead. "You said-! You said if I answered your questions, you'd let me go."

He considered it for a moment.

"I lied," the gentleman informed her, finished a knot over Ismere's bellybutton, and stood up. She tossed one disenchanted glance downwards to see what crudely resembled a dog's leash strung around her middle, with four yards of free rope dangling in a heap. He caught it up and wrapped the excess thrice around his fist. Actually, now that she'd studied it for a moment, the whole outfit was beginning to look less like a hound's tether and more like a noose.

"Where are we going?" the girl wheezed, stomach burbling, not entirely sure she wanted an answer.

"The hour grows late and I tire of waiting for a guard patrol, so _we_ are going to Suran," he announced crisply, tucking _The Ruins of Kemel-Ze_ safely into his small stitched provisions pack, and slinging it over one shoulder. She noted a slight offset to the man's jaw, but it did nothing to mitigate the upwards tilt to that stately, knife-point nose. The rather round-snouted outlander took it as a distinct sign she was in a fair amount of trouble. "From whence I will take a skiff to Vivec, and YOU will go straight to a prison sell."

Air caught in Ismere's gullet, ricocheted through her lungs, clanked down her gorge and finally landed in the woman's gut – only to turn into an iceball of horror.

"That's not fair!" she wailed, brows furrowed, a large dramatic dent hammered directly between two pasty pink eyes.

The Sarano cocked his head.

"It's not, is it?" he sniffed, gave her a tug, and dragged a back-peddling mutt elf down the dirt road towards Suran.


End file.
